If This Isn’t Love – 2021
Samara Joy
A cooking performance with Emmet Cohen
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Samara Joy become a bit of a sensation during 2021-22 due to her beautiful voice, mature use of space and dynamics, and her apparent ease at interpreting standards while sounding fresh and contemporary.
For this performance, the singer is joined by pianist Emmet Cohen, bassist Russell Hall, and drummer Kyle Poole.
After Samara Joy introduces “If This Isn’t Love” (both the verse and its chorus), Cohen takes a hard-swinging solo at a fast tempo that is worthy of Oscar Peterson.
Samara Joy returns with confidence, sounding a bit like Sarah Vaughan and showing that she can swing hard too.
It is difficult to believe, listening to her voice and mature phrasing, that she was only 23 at the time.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald